Edit: Just read the comments on the blog post. Someone is complaining about Steam integration and would have preferred GFWL... *shudder*

Wow. I only had trouble when I first started using GfWL, but I still can't imagine preferring it to Steam.

Dogmeat215 wrote:

I enjoyed Bioshocks 1 & 2 quite a bit. Infinite is definitely on my radar. But I really wish they'd find a way to do System Shock 3.

Unfortunately there's no way that this team could do it. Unless they wanted to jump ship from 2K to start working for EA, but 2K sounds like they're giving them the freedom they need to develop the game they want to. I also can't see EA being willing to give up an IP. Even one they're doing nothing with.

Just like Firaxis could do a true successor to Alpha Centauri if they wanted, just change the titles/relevant names.

Which is how Alpha Centauri came about in the first place. Firaxis wanted to do a game in the Civilization style, but Microprose had the rights.

I'm not sure if I would want to see a SMAC "sequel" that doesn't involve Brian Reynolds, though. If Zynga continues to struggle, maybe he'll move on to a "getting the band back together" project ala Wasteland 2 or Star Citizen some day. A SMAC or Rise of Nations spiritual successor with Reynolds as lead would thrill me almost as much as the XCOM reboot has.

edit: On topic, it looks like I'll need to clear out some space on my SSD before Bioshock: Infinite drops. 20GB is an awful lot of game.

They're not really that bad - "quad core" CPU, 4GB, DX11 card. If you're already playing e.g. BF3 at high or ultra detail levels, it sounds like you'd be fine.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

They're not really that bad - "quad core" CPU, 4GB, DX11 card. If you're already playing e.g. BF3 at high or ultra detail levels, it sounds like you'd be fine.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

Im in the same boat. If you have any other games installed it will really put stress on the SSd capacity

The same, although I never bothered with Max Payne. Rage didn't look like the most amazing thing I'd ever seen for its size, either. I've had my eye on a 256GB Crucial M4 + transfer kit for a while now, not the least of which is due to also having 50GB of Dropbox storage, and not mirroring all of it due to space concerns. Now might be a good time, since I'm getting a bit tired of having 4 games installed and 15GB free on C:.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

WTF? I need to get a CD ROM to play Myst? How big is this freaking game? That is crazy insane no game needs to be that big! No game can really take up a whole CD!

That's crazy talk. The only reason I have an SSD is to load games faster. It's also why I have a 256GB one. It is really nice to boot into Windows ultra fast, but I do that 100x less than there are loading transitions in games.

If you are the type who needs to have all the games installed at once... I can understand the apprehension. But I use my 128 GB SSD for OS and games and after a short adjustment period, I'm doing fine, and have at the moment installed (through Steam alone) Ace of Spades, The Bard's Tale, Dead Rising 2, Dead Space, DeadLight (wtf deads?), Dishonored, Skyrim + all DLC's and tons of mods, FTL, Stalker, Civ V, Vampire Bloodlines, WarZ, and a few others.

Admittedly it's easy with Steam (or Origin, for example) where I can delete and install games without the hassle of discswapping in a matter of a few minutes, but really, who installs with discs anymore?

I'm all for space being used for good reasons, personally, and more texture detail on PC is a good reason. MP3 looked gorgeous at 1920x1080. More power to them, I say.

The game doesn't need to be huge to have really good textures. Often, that kind of size indicates poor optimization of space, usually (in my experience) caused by splitting attention between multiple different platforms (i.e. "consolitis").

Having said that, texture resolutions required to make a difference at 1080p and above necessitate large file sizes. Obvious factors are the amount of texture re-use and the number of assets requiring large super-duper textures, but Crysis 2 / Skyrim / Sleeping Dogs et al. have texture packs that are a few GB in size at least.

That's crazy talk. The only reason I have an SSD is to load games faster. It's also why I have a 256GB one. It is really nice to boot into Windows ultra fast, but I do that 100x less than there are loading transitions in games.

Precisely. I cannot understand why you'd have an SSD, and not want to use it for your most commonly used programs as well as your OS. Found out I got a tax rebate yesterday too, for some reason. Now powerfully tempted by a 512GB M4.

Having said that, texture resolutions required to make a difference at 1080p and above necessitate large file sizes. Obvious factors are the amount of texture re-use and the number of assets requiring large super-duper textures, but Crysis 2 / Skyrim / Sleeping Dogs et al. have texture packs that are a few GB in size at least.

Partially true; the Crysis2 texture packs were a couple of GB at most, but at 3 DVD's worth we're talking 12GB of uncompressed capacity. The only other title I can think of which is this large is BF3 + the Premium expansions - which is reasonable enough, given that it's about 20 maps worth of data and textures.

That's what I initially thought when I partitioned my SSD, with 75GB left for games. It's largely true, of course. But then there's the modern trend of never-ending DLCs, so you're compelled to keep some games installed for a few months. You still can move them back and forth, but it's not as straightforward anymore.

Why not just use Steam Mover? How many games can you really be actively playing at the same time?

At the moment I only have 4 or 5 installed anyway, of which one is the aforementioned huge BF3. However, I have just pulled the trigger on a 256GB SSD plus Crucial's transfer kit, so I'll have 384GB of SSD capacity when it arrives. I'll clone the original C: onto the 256GB drive, which will about half-fill it, and reformat the 128GB for pure storage.

I was just thinking about game length, as i read an article in Forbes saying that some games have basically padding to get to the length that is now deemed acceptable.

For me im starting to dislike long games, so I was thinking what length would people like to see Infinite be?I heard that is approximately the same length as 1, which I would be happy with (was that like 10-15hrs?) Pretty much as long as Kevin Levine and the gang dont pad out the game, just a nice story arc that leads us to the end without dragging, it should be good.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

why would you install games onto your SSD? unless it's streaming textures from the HD during play, putting it on a spindle disc won't hurt performance beyond longer loading times.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

why would you install games onto your SSD? unless it's streaming textures from the HD during play, putting it on a spindle disc won't hurt performance beyond longer loading times.

Considering some of the load times can get pretty abyssmal depending on the game, sometimes loading it onto an SSD is the best way to go. I usually keep the games I'm playing on my SSD and push the "sometimes/rarely/never play" ones onto one of my two HDDs.

For me im starting to dislike long games, so I was thinking what length would people like to see Infinite be?I heard that is approximately the same length as 1, which I would be happy with (was that like 10-15hrs?) Pretty much as long as Kevin Levine and the gang dont pad out the game, just a nice story arc that leads us to the end without dragging, it should be good.

Padding should never be acceptable as a way to increase the amount of time that people play.

As for how long I want a game to last? As long as it takes to present the game they want to present me with. If a game is only six hours, but it's a rock-solid, perfectly paced and executed six hours then I'll be as happy as if I played a game that lasted twice that (assuming it's just as solid a game). If I play a ten hour game and sometime around hour six I start thinking "this is dragging on way too long" it's likely that they put so much padding in their game that I've gotten bored of it.

The whole "if it's not 'x' length, then I didn't get my money's worth" BS is what's caused games to get stuffed with filler and padding to increase their length and it almost always brings the quality of the game down. Now, there are a couple of types of "padding" that I don't mind: collectibles. Collectibles are fine if they either aren't required to progress in/complete the game OR if the player has some in-game way to find them all short of scouring every nook and cranny.

The second is a loosely directed open world setting with non-story diversions. inFamous did that perfectly. I could progress the (relatively short) story OR I could run around the city and (possibly) complete challenges. There's stuff to do that doesn't really cost the developer that much to implement, but it's in the player's hands how much and when they want to do it.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

why would you install games onto your SSD? unless it's streaming textures from the HD during play, putting it on a spindle disc won't hurt performance beyond longer loading times.

Considering some of the load times can get pretty abyssmal depending on the game, sometimes loading it onto an SSD is the best way to go. I usually keep the games I'm playing on my SSD and push the "sometimes/rarely/never play" ones onto one of my two HDDs.

i tried doing that shuffle when i first got my SSD but eventually just got used to dealing with only ~100GB space for games. That's still enough space for many typical AAA titles and it's not really much of an inconvenience since most of my games are digital delivery these days and uninstall/reinstalls are just a few clicks and then walking the dog or whatnot.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

why would you install games onto your SSD? unless it's streaming textures from the HD during play, putting it on a spindle disc won't hurt performance beyond longer loading times.

Considering some of the load times can get pretty abyssmal depending on the game, sometimes loading it onto an SSD is the best way to go. I usually keep the games I'm playing on my SSD and push the "sometimes/rarely/never play" ones onto one of my two HDDs.

i tried doing that shuffle when i first got my SSD but eventually just got used to dealing with only ~100GB space for games. That's still enough space for many typical AAA titles and it's not really much of an inconvenience since most of my games are digital delivery these days and uninstall/reinstalls are just a few clicks and then walking the dog or whatnot.

I manage it by installing everything to my HDD and only moving games to the SSD if it fits one of two criteria: either it's going to be played heavily and constantly (Skyrim, Borderlands2) or it has terrible loading times or loading hitches (Tomb Raider). Everything else I play directly from the HDD. Once I'm done with a game on the SSD it gets deleted instead of moved back over.

The "3 DVDs" bit gives me pause though. My main drive is a 128GB SSD, and that sounds like it'll eat half of it right away. A game install topping north of 20GB is officially getting into the "excessive" realms, I think.

why would you install games onto your SSD? unless it's streaming textures from the HD during play, putting it on a spindle disc won't hurt performance beyond longer loading times.

Considering some of the load times can get pretty abyssmal depending on the game, sometimes loading it onto an SSD is the best way to go. I usually keep the games I'm playing on my SSD and push the "sometimes/rarely/never play" ones onto one of my two HDDs.

For the never/rarely variety, any reason you wouldn't just uninstall them and reinstall from steam when you want to play them? That's what I do, but I also tend to only play one game at a time, until I beat it.

If it's single player, I generally only install it when I plan to play it. But if I shelve it for a later time (and know I'll get back to it eventually), I'll shuffle it to an HDD. But most of the games I keep installed for long periods of time are generally multiplayer. So even if I don't play it much, I can still spin it up on occasion if the urge rises.

And let's not forget, every time you do that you're having to redownload 5GB+ of files. Why would you want to do that repeatedly?

If it's single player, I generally only install it when I plan to play it. But if I shelve it for a later time (and know I'll get back to it eventually), I'll shuffle it to an HDD. But most of the games I keep installed for long periods of time are generally multiplayer. So even if I don't play it much, I can still spin it up on occasion if the urge rises.

And let's not forget, every time you do that you're having to redownload 5GB+ of files. Why would you want to do that repeatedly?

That makes sense. I guess you and I have different definitions of rarely/never.

If it's single player, I generally only install it when I plan to play it. But if I shelve it for a later time (and know I'll get back to it eventually), I'll shuffle it to an HDD. But most of the games I keep installed for long periods of time are generally multiplayer. So even if I don't play it much, I can still spin it up on occasion if the urge rises.

And let's not forget, every time you do that you're having to redownload 5GB+ of files. Why would you want to do that repeatedly?

That makes sense. I guess you and I have different definitions of rarely/never.

I do much the same as Mortus, though I don't play many multiplayer games these days. Though I don't usually uninstall, even single player, games right when I'm done with them. Usually they only get uninstalled when I realize that my Installed Games tab has more that I haven't fired up in over a month than ones I've been playing recently.

One more aspect is DLC - and Bioshock Infinite is going to have it. So you can't just uninstall the game once you're done with it. It's going to stay on your PC for months unless you willing to redownload it. And you probably don't even want to shuffle 20+ GB between the HDD and the SSD (especially more than once).

For me, the story is capturing me. The ultranationalism of the Founders vs the Vox Populi trying to fight them surrounded by a place rife with a theocratic government that uses things like racial segregation, Nazism, jingoism, and xenophobia as basis for a 'better society' smacks a lot on some of the reality we are facing.

Of course you know if its a bioshock game, its not going to be 'Founders are bad/Vox are good' idea. Under a few layers of skin will show a bit of ugly and I am betting if its anything like some of the historical attitudes of other 'free societies' from the past, its not going to be pretty in any way in terms of the Vox....but we will see.

Like it or not, I believe this game may make a lot of people view certain attitudes out there with new eyes.